yet I loved her
through it all! I hoped that her snows would melt with the warmth of a
poet's love. If I could only have made her feel all the greatness that
lies in devotion, then I should have seen her perfected, she would have
been an angel. I loved her as a man, a lover, and an artist; if it had
been necessary not to love her so that I might win her, some cool-headed
coxcomb, some self-possessed calculator would perhaps have had an
advantage over me. She was so vain and sophisticated, that the language
of vanity would appeal to her; she would have allowed herself to be
taken in the toils of an intrigue; a hard, cold nature would have gained
a complete ascendency over her. Keen grief had pierced me to my very
soul, as she unconsciously revealed her absolute love of self. I seemed
to see her as she one day would be, alone in the world, with no one to
whom she could stretch her hand, with no friendly eyes for her own
to meet and rest upon. I was bold enough to set this before her one
evening; I painted in vivid colors her lonely, sad, deserted old age.
Her comment on this prospect of so terrible a revenge of thwarted nature
was horrible.

"'I shall always have money,' she said; 'and with money we can always
inspire such sentiments as are necessary for our comfort in those about
us.'

"I went away confounded by the arguments of luxury, by the reasoning
of this woman of the world in which she lived; and blamed myself for
my infatuated idolatry. I myself had not loved Pauline because she
was poor; and had not the wealthy Foedora a right to repulse Raphael?
Conscience is our unerring judge until we finally stifle it. A specious
voice said within me, 'Foedora is neither attracted to nor repulses any
one; she has her liberty, but once upon a time she sold herself to the
Russian count, her husband or her lover, for gold. But temptation is
certain to enter into her life. Wait till that moment comes!' She lived
remote from humanity, in a sphere apart, in a hell or a heaven of
her own; she was neither frail nor virtuous. This feminine enigma in
embroideries and cashmeres had brought into play every emotion of the
human heart in me--pride, ambition, love, curiosity.

"There was a craze just then for praising a play at a little Boulevard
theatre, prompted perhaps by a wish to appear original that besets us
all, or due to some freak of fashion. The countess showed some signs of
a wish to see the floured face of the actor who had